Support of the collaborative inquiry learning process: influence of support on task and team regulation

Regulation of the learning process is an important condition for efficient and effective learning. In collaborative learning, students have to regulate their collaborative activities (team regulation) next to the regulation of their own learning process focused on the task at hand (task regulation). In this study, we investigate how support of collaborative inquiry learning can influence the use of regulative activities of students. Furthermore, we explore the possible relations between task regulation, team regulation and learning results. This study involves tenth-grade students who worked in pairs in a collaborative inquiry learning environment that was based on a computer simulation, Collisions, developed in the program SimQuest. Students of the same team worked on two different computers and communicated through chat. Chat logs of students from three different conditions are compared. Students in the first condition did not receive any support at all (Control condition). In the second condition, students received an instruction in effective communication, the RIDE rules (RIDE condition). In the third condition, students were, in addition to receiving the RIDE rules instruction, supported by the Collaborative Hypothesis Tool (CHT), which helped the students with formulating hypotheses together (CHT condition). The results show that students overall used more team regulation than task regulation. In the RIDE condition and the CHT condition, students regulated their team activities most often. Moreover, in the CHT condition the regulation of team activities was positively related to the learning results. We can conclude that different measures of support can enhance the use of team regulative activities, which in turn can lead to better learning results

Effecten van een didactische interventie bij het leren in kleine groepen in de basisvorming.

This article reports on two intervention studies into the effects of a training in the use of social and/or cognitive strategies on the learning outcomes of students in secondary mathematics education. Special attention is given to differential effects for high- and low-achieving students. The studies were addressed to the following research question: What are the general and differential effects of training in the use of social and/or cognitive strategies on the results of learning in secondary mathematics? In the first study three instructional programs for co-operative learning were compared: (i) an experimental program with special instruction in the use of social strategies, (ii) an experimental program with special instruction in the use of cognitive strategies, and (iii) a control program without training in either cognitive or social strategies. The programs were identical with respect to mathematical content and general instructional settings (a combination of whole-class instruction, working in co-operative groups and individual work). The research was conducted in two schools for secondary education and in 21 classes, involving a total of 511 students. The design was a pretest-posttest control group design, using two experimental groups and one control group. The data were analysed from a multi-level perspective. The outcomes of the investigation clearly show the effects of the intervention. Teaching cognitive and social strategies has the expected, positive effects. In addition to this main effect, a compensatory effect for the low-achieving students was found. The low-achieving students in the experimental conditions outperformed their counterparts in the control group.In the experimental program of the second study students were trained in cognitive strategies and social strategies. To put it differently, the training involved mathematical problem solving and strategies for effective group work: social and cognitive strategies were integrated. As in the first study, students in the control group did not receive any strategy instruction. In general, the outcomes of the second study confirmed the positive results of the first study, however it turned out that low achieving students in the experimental program had about the same learning gains as their counterparts in the control program. The differences in outcomes concerning the low achieving students are discussed in detai